So, I am here. You’re here. That means you are either sick like me, or you have some compelling reason to read this blog. (Maybe you are a masochist:)
What do we do with that??
Well, you know, I think I have come to a new place with it all. I think I have chosen to quit struggling against it so damned much. I mean, I won’t win the war. At some point or another we all die. It is just a matter of when and of what.
Do we want to obsess on that and how we get there or do we just want to live and thrive the best we can in the now?
I have chosen the latter.
So, now the real work begins.
The point is I don’t want to just survive. Well, there are days when I can only crawl from one thing to the next. There is nothing I can really do about those days: crap happens.
But for the rest of the days I want something more from my life. I want abundance. I want some meaningful fulfillment. I don’t think this is asking for too much. I just think it is a multi layered solution. It is messy; just like life itself.
What does that look like for you?
What does that look like for me?
For me, it goes back to the Divine. If I am not in direct communication with my spiritual side I don’t get too far. I get stuck in my own ego and my own fear and my own loud and critical, “you can’t” voice. So, that comes first. I have to do some sort of meditative practice.
Then, step two can be one of many things: I can listen to the small still voice within and see where it is sending me. Usually it is telling me to go outside of myself and to be in touch with or in service to others. Basically, my call to be in ministry never left. It has just changed throughout the last (er..hemmm 30! years!).
Sometimes that service is staring me in the face and I don’t even see it. It can be as close as my own home or as far and scary as a place where I need to study and mature.
Right now I feel like I should be trying to bring money into the family piggy bank. We have another child about to start college and a home that is aging. It would be nice if I could get back to work.
I really don’t know if that is going to happen or if it should happen. I am just trying to be open to the possibility. I am applying for things.
I also know I need to do something about this call thing. I have been listening to it for a long time. I have answered it in so many ways in my life: I have preached and taught and listened and offered what advice I could. But I feel pretty strongly that something new is headed my way. I just need to catch the ball that is being thrown and and run with it, or in my case, slowly, shamble along with it:)
I have a feeling it is not going to be a money making proposition!
I am heading towards an actual point with all of this.
Just because we are disabled by illness or by pain, or both, we don’t have to stop being who we are meant to be. We have to be realistic and give ourselves the latitude to have bad days. We have to know that we are not going to magically be who we were before we became chronically ill and/or in chronic pain. But, we can be ourselves. We can find meaning in our lives; whether that is through work or through more education or in groups or in choir or in the gym or in all of the above.
It is all a choice.
And having that choice is freedom. It means that the endless vistas that were open to us before we were sickos are still not all closed. Some of the borders might have shifted and we may not have the right paperwork to cross but it CAN be done.
We should not assume that we are left gazing across at the people running past us. We can slowly run after them.
And you know what?
There will be a giant herd of Zebras (medical weirdos – my people ) loping at their own speed and no matter what the disease or or pain level or whatever-you-have: you are welcome to lope along.